Workshops

This session will introduce simple, practical tools for beginning farmers in reading the land and making grazing decisions at any scale. From beef, small ruminants and pastured poultry, learn that grazing planning is approachable and you can be self-sufficient in the process of managing your operation. We’ll tackle the whys,’ hows,’ and see tangible results from actual farmers who have adopted organic, holistic, planned grazing processes. Bring your goals, maps, and animal numbers and be an interactive participant in learning to chart a path to success.

In this session, GROW Windham staff will share what strategies and practices they have implemented in their urban agriculture programming to help their youth members step into larger leadership roles within the organization and their gardens. The session will focus on how to build rapport with younger generations of growers while allowing them space to lead, grow their voice, and further their growing skills. GROW Windham youth and staff will voice some of the wins and challenges that come with growing their own food and working in an urban garden.

Staff and participants of the program will share their mentorship model and how they facilitate peer-to-peer learning within the program. Additionally, they will cover some of the challenges that come with mentoring, such as: navigating diverse cultural and generational backgrounds, creating community buy-in, and meeting people where they’re at in their food cultivating journey.

Towards the end of the session there will be time to network and discuss with other attendees what strategies and insights they might share. We highly encourage young people and others looking to connect and network in the local food system to join this session. We also encourage people to share any opportunities or connections they may have to offer to each other.

In this workshop, the practice of repeat harvesting, or cut-and-come-again production of greens, will be discussed. This will start with an introduction to the practice of cut-and-come again harvesting and the greens that are suited to this production style. While this is a common practice among small scale and urban producers, research-based production recommendations that maximize yield and crop quality at later harvests do not exist. Research is currently being conducted at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station to develop these research-based guidelines that will help growers new to the practice of cut-and-come-again, as well as experienced growers, looking to improve production. Current research projects and their preliminary findings will be shared with the workshop group. A questionnaire about production practices currently being used by farmers will be used to facilitate dialogue about present practices and research findings. The workshop will be concluded with a discussion about what additional challenges farmers using this practice may face that could help in the creation of research projects and extension programming that would address those challenges.

Ask Aunt Nellie (AAN) is a farmer-led project to build a collaborative database of sourcing for all the stuff and services we need to run our farms. In the early years of my farm, a lot of time and effort went into finding trustworthy and economical suppliers for farm goods and services, from potato plows & wax boxes to tax consultants & payroll services, and I know this experience is not unique. I designed this project so that all of us as CT farmers can support each other with our knowledge. So many of us start from scratch and don’t have an older generation to call upon, and as I’ve learned recently, a number of the older generation are interested to learn more about how younger folks are operating their farms. With your help, Ask Aunt Nellie can be a vital resource that serves us all.

This workshop will be a collaborative exercise in building and testing the AAN database. We are currently in the process of collecting sourcing info for the database, and verifying that the organizational structure we are imagining suits fellow farmers. New and beginning farmers, this will be a great opportunity for you to inform our process, and help us build a useful product. Established farmers, we’d really appreciate you sharing your knowledge and perspective. Peer-to-peer learning at its best!

Ask Aunt Nellie will be a free resource for CT farmers. The project is funded by Cobblestone Farm’s NE SARE farmer grant, with additional support from UConn Engineering’s Small Farm Innovations project and the New CT Farmer Alliance. This workshop is for current and aspiring production farmers.

Applying for and maintaining organic certification requires a significant amount of record keeping. At times, it can feel like a waste of energy to track all sorts of things that you may know intuitively, or at least think you know intuitively. A well designed record keeping system can provide valuable insight into how your business is performing, what crops/livestock are actually making you a profit, and what systems are holding your team back from being more efficient.

This discussion will highlight record keeping systems that we use at Closter Farm to track our organic processes, improve our margins, and build a better farm. This workshop is designed for farmers, farm employees, and other agriculture professionals with 3+ years of experience and assumes a working knowledge of agri-business.

With the winds against us at the national level, advocacy at the state level is more important than ever. Learn about CT NOFA’s legislative priorities, and learn how to advocate for your priorities at the CT General Assembly. How to meet with your legislators, how to testify, understand the process by which bills get killed or get passed. You will come away with specific steps to take action.